April 7, 2015

"Shouting Down The Cliff"

Shouting Down The
Cliff

Every morning, I saw him from my window. He walked past my
house, to the end of the block, and he stared out at the canyon in front of
him. He was only there a minute or two, but he never missed a day.

One day, after he passed, I stepped out on my own porch and
watched him. And then I heard him. It was muffled, but he was yelling
something. Had he done that every single day, I wondered?

Curiosity got the best of me, and that day, I stepped off of
my porch and walked over to where he was standing.

“Hello?”

He spun around quickly, a surprised look on his face. “Oh,
hey. I didn’t know you were there.”

I apologized for disturbing him, but I had to know. What was he doing?

“This will probably sound crazy, I’m sure, but I come here
each day to save my life.”

I didn’t understand at all, and he knew it from the confused
look on my face.

“I’m not a very confident person,” he said. “I struggle
every day with insecurity. And sometimes, it’s so bad that I feel like I can’t
survive another day. So I come here, to this spot, and I think about throwing
myself into the canyon below.”

“It’s true, I often feel bad when I come here. But I don’t
give in. Instead, I take all the negative words racing around in my head and I
shout them down the canyon. I guess that’s what you might have heard.”

“It’s how I save my life, “ he continued. “I shout the most
negative words, the worst things I can think about myself. And I imagine the
words falling down into the canyon and crashing down onto the rocks below. The
words die a tragic death, and I live to see another day.”

I didn’t bother him again during his morning walk, but in
the weeks that followed, he began to stop on his way back. We never mentioned
his canyon moments again, but we did strike up a friendship over morning coffee
and light conversation.

And I think of him even today, long after I have moved away.
I wonder if he is okay. I wonder if he is still shouting down a canyon. And I
wonder, mostly, if he ever really felt at peace.